Localisation and the return of fascism

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People are expressing themselves from bad to worse. It is a sorry sight indeed. With the advent of the Internet and content produced by users, language is evolving at an ever increasing rate. Common mistakes eventually become systematic and accepted as the norm once the next generation forgets the correct form. For example, I bet that within five years it will be acceptable to write “their are several ways [to do something]”. Confusion between the use of « there, their and they’re » is a common grammatical mistake that many people make or read without picking up on the error.  This rapid corruption of language is one of the reasons why crowdsourcing of translation is to be avoided as much possible. Likewise, I urge you to have your virtual content translated by a professional translator – an absurd idea perhaps – but you never know. It might work.

Among those languages progressively losing their cultural identity, Italian has pride of place. Italy has only been a united country since 1861 and this unity was not confirmed on a linguistic level until after World War II, through the advent of television among other things. It was a time of literacy campaigns and national pride. Now gone when you see that young Italians no longer know their own language and even institutions in the country hardly seem to care about preserving it. I could give you many examples to illustrate how corruption – rampant on various levels in Italy – even influences the very language (I am Italian). However, I will confine my discussion to localisation.

The most common source language on the Internet is English, but the aspects I will present to you here are also common to websites translated from the French.

Calques (or loanwords). Italians think that English is a much “cooler” language. That is why they prefer to use “supporto” instead of “assistenza” to translate the English word support, or “registrarsi” instead of “iscriversi” for register, and so on. These words are not used at all in Italian in the natural language, but are now commonplace on the Web. This does not mean they are correct.

Pronouns. Italian uses very few pronouns. Firstly, it is a language that is written as it is pronounced: “I love” is “io amo” and “you love” is “tu ami”. So we just say “amo, ami” because we don’t need the pronoun to understand who the subject is. In fact, we only use possessive pronouns when there is cause for ambiguity. So we would say “dammi la mano” (and not “dammi la tua mano”) for “give me your hand”. It is obvious that we are referring to the hand of the person we are speaking to (unless that person is carrying a dissected corpse…). That is why it is easy to recognise a poor Italian translation by the impressive number of pronouns contained within it.

Formal “you”. Where formal “you” is used in English and the French prefer “vous” to address Internet users, very bad Italian translators have invaded the Internet with horrible constructions based on the pronoun “voi”. See the Italian website for Chanel, for example:

Yet, not only is it the informal “tu”, or the infinitive form of the verb that should be used in this context, if you do really want to speak formally to someone, you have to use “Lei” in Italian – the third person singular. That said, “Lei” is only used in very formal situations and therefore never on the Internet.  Also, “Lei” must always be reciprocated which means you demand that your customers speak as formally to you in return.

Used until the 19th Century in parallel to “Lei” and “tu”, “voi” was reserved for those people of very high rank. In southern Italy, it is still very common to speak formally using “voi”, but this is more a mark of dialect. These days, “voi” is a plural pronoun that addresses several people at once, as explained by Luca Seriani from the national linguistic institute Accademia della Crusca. In 1938, Mussolini banned the use of “Lei” and ordered the return of “voi” in formal speech. Ettore Scola quotes this law in his 1977 film “Una giornata particolare« . Italianists will note that Marcello Mastroianni uses “Lei” whereas Sophia Loren uses “voi”. They argue in fact, as Sophia Loren is afraid of reprisals for refusing to apply this fascist grammar. Mastroianni resolves the dispute by moving straight to the use of “tu”.

That is why each time I browse a badly-translated website where I read “voi”, I turn to check whether there isn’t someone doing a Roman salute in the room. Is this the effect desired by those who mandate these translations?  Far from it, I’m sure…

A “two-cent” story

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This story is about a translator who wanted to earn a living through his profession. He offered his services at an average market rate.

One day, a client asked him to make a small effort by lowering his rate by one cent per word.

The translator’s initial reaction was to get angry and ask the client what she’d do if her own employer – after five years without a raise despite the quality of work delivered – announced one fine day that wages would be reduced by a small amount, say 10%, “because of the economic situation”.

But the translator knew that freelancers cannot compare themselves to salaried employees. So he agreed to lower his rates a little.

All he has to do now is find a bit more work to make ends meet each month. If he’s lucky enough to find extra work, he’ll need to work weekends and late evenings to make up for the missed earnings, sacrificing his social and personal life, not to mention his health.

If he doesn’t find extra work, he’ll end up changing his lifestyle. If he lives in the city, he’ll move to the country. Or if he was foolish enough to found a family despite his precarious situation and therefore cannot move easily, he’ll start by missing out on holidays and days’ out, while waiting to find a new job and say goodbye to his years of training, study and experience.

Each time a client asks a translator to “make a gesture of goodwill” he or she is asking that person to forego a part of his or her life. That’s not business, it’s blackmail.

That is why, when I align with competitors’ rates, I lower my margin but not the rate requested by the translator(s). I’ll probably end up having to change my own lifestyle, unless I can change the world first…

 

Translating a website: localisation and SEO

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Every company has its own website, but few business owners know what localisation is, despite it being their main asset for success in the international market.

Localisation is the translation of all content to be displayed on an interface: from mobile phones to websites, with GPS systems, medical devices or DVD menus in between. Basically everything that is formatted via software and displayed on a screen.

In this particular case, localising a website means not only taking account of the functional limitations and technical characteristics of the electronic medium used, but also adapting content to the target market by transposing cultural elements and adapting style and tone so that the message is perfectly received, understood and assimilated by the audience in the country in question.

If you plan to translate your website, here are the most common mistakes to avoid at all costs:

 

Lack of content management strategy

Website content is often underestimated. Once the entire budget has been spent on technical and graphic elements, plus writing of the source content, more spendthrift companies find themselves penniless when it comes to content maintenance and management. Localisation often doesn’t even get a look in (I still don’t know why companies think to conduct market studies and hire bilingual salespeople when they want to conquer a new market, but always seem to forget translation  – they must surely believe in the power of telepathy). Consequently, various parts of the website are entrusted to different service providers, or even members of staff, without any consultation or coordination regarding communications strategy and without nominating a sole project manager responsible for making all the decisions and answering questions from writers and translators.  Of course, this means that some pages are updated in one language and not translated, that some links do not work, or worse, information is not consistent from one page to another.  Often a single page will contain a mix of several languages because the developers forgot to define a default language!

 

Lack of internal consistency for each version of the website

This lack of single reference person for content causes major usability issues. The user gets lost: buttons, breadcrumb trails and menus are not consistently named; it becomes impossible to find them from one page to another.

Sometimes common guidelines lack for localisation and the choice of language or style. So we see websites mixing UK and US English; websites in Italian addressing users like a court bailiff and a nursery playmate on the same page; Spanish websites with some pages written in very formal language and others in a totally down-to-earth style; websites designed for Portugal but written in Brazilian Portuguese; literal translations, Anglicisms and Gallicisms (depending on the source language) or even worse, websites in Slavic languages without providing for the necessary declensions. You can just imagine the damage done when passing from a language written from left to right to one that is written from right to left…

 

Lack of SEO/SEM for translated versions

If you have invested in SEO or SEM for your website, be aware that it is not enough just to translate the optimised version. You have to go through the whole process again for each language and each target country. Translators specialised in localisation and referencing do exist. They can create a semantic charter, select keywords and expressions, and recommend style improvements for the current version of your website.  These service providers work hand in hand with SEO agencies who know how to incorporate the data supplied by the translators into an analysis of the site tree and monitoring of search trends. They know how to remove blocks that could hinder the correct indexing of content and can guarantee a truly efficient return on investment. In this respect, Fairtrad is pleased to be working with Première Position since 2010.

Not forgetting social networks: the language used may not be the same as for your company website. While the two are linked, it is important to review the general style and expressly predetermine the tone to be used on each social media and for each country in order to avoid a cacophony.

 

Entrusting translation to just anyone

A quick reminder that entrusting translation to non-professionals, or overlooking quality assurance (proofreading in context during the pre-production phase) mean you will have websites full of spelling or grammar mistakes, written in pitiful style, with incomprehensible or even offensive cultural references. All issues that will have the time to discourage many a potential customer before a sufficiently cultivated (and motivated) bilingual employee in your company sounds the alarm. This is usually the moment when you make a panicked call to the cheapest translation agency you manage to find. Before reaching this point however, you can decide to consult Fairtrad or another respectable agency for a quality audit and implementation of a reliable and effective localisation process.

 

Neglecting the impact of localisation on ROI and brand identity

These considerations for the quality of localisation complement and incorporate considerations for graphic interface quality and user experience, in other words navigability of the website.  It is unfortunate that companies displaying too low a conversion rate think to test the usability of their website in terms of structure and function, without concern for language quality, despite the fact that it is a key element in the presentation of their services.

Poor localisation gives an overall impression of incompetency and shoddy workmanship. For users, a company that doesn’t pay attention to the quality of communications in the language of their country is not worthy of their business. So next time you plan your marketing investments, remember to consult a professional and ensure that, as my philosophy professor would say, “the cover is as good as the book”.
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